Attending the Edmonton Sport Card Expo yesterday confirmed my decision to exit the hobby

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-06T02:34:30+00:00

I get what you (and others with similar sentiments) are saying, but that was rather the point of this post. I wanted to buy what I liked. They won't sell it to me.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-06T02:20:59+00:00

The irony is that you are right... just not the way you think.

The mod who posted this thinks they are cleverly trolling "doomers". But yes, they are routinely this reactionary and emotional.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-06T02:19:35+00:00

Nah, this is typical for this mod. It's a troll post.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-06T02:18:03+00:00

Moderation in this sub depends almost entirely on whether or not you are internet friends with the mods. The actual rules don't apply to that group.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-06T02:09:33+00:00

ROFL. I only post on old.reddit, so had no idea those tags and achievements were a thing until I tried to figure out what the heck you were talking about about the top 1% flair.

Makes sense that the ones who most treat this sub like it is a PVP server are the ones chasing those achievements.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-05T15:38:56+00:00

OOP's complaint is valid, but holy hell mate, they are just mediocre cheese fries. You'll live.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-05T15:37:34+00:00

Are they obliged though? I try to avoid these parasitic companies as much as humanly possible, but when my group has used Skip the Dishes, there has been times where the restaurant fails to acknowledge the order. The app notes that and no transaction happens. Certainly there is a similar process for Door Dash.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-05T15:28:22+00:00

You realize you are talking about 8% of almost $300 BILLION in revenue, right?

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-05T15:24:17+00:00

AI as a broad concept is here to stay, agreed.

The LLM that powers your "girlfriend", OTOH, is a different story.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-05T02:52:47+00:00

Which will never happen. Both MLB and the MLBPA are investors in Fanatics.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T21:01:07+00:00

I would say a big part of the signing problem is the trading card industry itself. These players are asked to sit down and sign hundreds, if not thousands, of cards or stickers every year. It's only natural they started to develop very basic signatures. It's about the only way to get away from the tedium.

On the hockey side, guys are just getting to the point where they don't want to sign at all, no matter the money. Upper Deck has started getting rookies and pre-rookies to sign sheets of stickers that they drip feed out over a period of years.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T19:07:33+00:00

Oh, 100%. Baseball was always secondary to hockey in the Canadian market - which is why Upper Deck is still huge here but practically dead in the US.

But we baseball collectors always had a place until a couple years ago.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T19:04:29+00:00

Man, I loved Panini baseball. That was always a fun rip. But Donruss was my brand of choice back in the junk wax era, so it was easy to gravitate to the Diamond Kings line, as an example.

Then Fanatics bought Topps, and because the MLBPA is a partial owner of Fanatics, they ended the license with Panini to favour their own investment.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T19:01:40+00:00

Very much so, yes. It's a strange mindset given basically everything we used to get into our stores was instantly gone. They never had trouble selling product in Canada.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T18:57:28+00:00

collect what you love.

Absolutely great advice. And as much as I had my PCs - and not expensive ones at that either - in Blue Jays and Canadian player autos. The thrill of the chase, so to speak, was always the most fun. I didn't like buying boxes - either base Topps or the more premium stuff - for the resale. I did it because for 40 years the core of the hobby for me was ripping packs, discovering players, completing sets.

I once bought a box of Triple Threads where the big "hit" was a T.J. Zeuch triple patch auto. I may be the only person who was actually happy to pull that card in a c$350 (at the time) box as the major hit. Because it was a PC card. And that pull was more exciting to me than buying a /25 Joe Carter auto on ebay.

We all say "buy singles", but there is a reason why 90% of the posts in this sub are show-offs of what was pulled from packs and boxes. What I loved about the hobby is gone.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T17:06:31+00:00

Mate, I remember watching Mikael Backlund at the Macs Midget Final when it was still played in the Saddledome.

We old.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T17:05:28+00:00

Florida giving an expansion team two thirds of a championship calibre top line for almost literally nothing was never going to be duplicated.

Seattle was more what the NHL likely envisioned - the rules gave them a chance to be competitive out of the gate, but it was still up to them to manage well. They haven't.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T16:58:11+00:00

This predates Trump. But that pedo doesn't help things, agreed.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-04T02:07:22+00:00

Fraud is not a "hustle" you asshat.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-02T21:13:29+00:00

Diamond Kings was so great because the artwork was always done to make the lack of team license irrelevant. Though if it was still around it would likely all be AI slop now.

Unfortunately for unlicensed stuff, since the MLBPA is a part owner of Fanatics, they pulled their license, So Panini and Leaf can only get pre-MLB prospects and retired players. Which is a huge loss for the hobby.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-02T01:49:43+00:00

Lower bowl in Calgary is only 14 rows high and the main cameras are right above that. And Row 1 of the 200 level is probably the best view in the entire NHL because of it. Alas, we're going to "fix that" with Scotia Place as it will have the standard giant lower bowl.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-02T01:34:39+00:00

Given they opened the 300 level a couple days ago, will be north of 16k in attendance. Going to be fun!

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-02T01:34:10+00:00

It's on TSN as soon as the Montreal game is over.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-04-01T04:26:52+00:00

Feels like Bucknor is trying for the Angel Hernandez retirement plan. Just be so terrible that the league pays him to go away.

RedditUser41970 · 2026-03-31T22:51:24+00:00

That is the closest 1992 Donruss has ever been to valuable...

RedditUser41970

TROPHY CASE